You may be an urbanite if you (pick at least 3):

1. travel in a personal automobile 5 or less times a week.
2. walk to a local market for groceries
3. walk to your coffee shop, lunch counter, dive bar or restaurant
4. walk to the following services: doctor, bank, pharmacist, accountant, barbershop, bike shop, tailor
5. make a living where you’re living.

On the other hand, if you have (or want) to drive everywhere, you aren’t an urbanite.

Jane Jacobs: the ultimate urbanite

Full disclosure. The inspiration for this post came from a series of tweets by Steve Mouzon, an architect and author of the Orginal Green, a blog dedicated to describing the sustainability that existed before the ‘Thermostat Age’, and the founder of the New Urban Guild in Miami.

His series of tweets used similar criteria to determine if you live in a sustainable neighborhood. This isn’t a coincidence. Being an urbanite is one of the most sustainable things you can do.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Steve Mouzon on The Top Ten for 2010 (treehugger.com)
• conversations in design: a world without oil (designboom.com)
• Good Front Porches are Science as Well As Art (treehugger.com)
• Eco 7 Bicycle Folds to Fit Within a Suitcase (inhabitat.com)

Thanks for being a regular reader of my site!

More from Yuri Artibise

• Recent Readings
• My Experience at Ignite Phoenix 5
• Friday Five: What I Read in the Week that Was
• Phoenix Friends, Volume I
• Sheeple vs Heretics

Yuri Artibise Recommends

• Stuck? You may need somebody to stand by you (Pam Slim)
• Scared of forming a partnership? You should be if you don’t follow this advice (Pam Slim)
• Be careful what you wish for – you just may get it! (Pam Slim)